


Nepeta's Adventures in Japanese

by KR Grim (KR_Grim)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anime, Gen, Japanese, weird human biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KR_Grim/pseuds/KR%20Grim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Learn the basics and we can have an anime night!" said Jade. So of course Nepeta jumped at the bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nepeta's Adventures in Japanese

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val Mora (valmora)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/gifts).



> I will preface this by saying that I'm not necessarily the best at writing Sollux, and the bits with him were mostly for comedy because I can honestly picture him being the one who genuinely doesn't care and thus gets things wrong on requests because, quote, "I didn't pay attention". :P Agree, disagree, the whole point of that attitude was comedy.

Nepeta growled in frustration at the page in front of her. Jade had promised that if she learned the basics of Japanese, they would have an anime night. The only problem was, it was Jade who was assigning the “basics”, and apparently either basic meant something completely different on Earth, or Jade’s idea of what was “basic” was more complicated than anyone else. Why else would Jade require her to have to learn how to write almost a hundred symbols?

Still, she had to accept that this was so she could watch more anime. And Jade was the best at picking out series to watch. She had promised something called “Baccano” was next, and even though the name sounded kind of silly, the premise was very cool — at least, so Nepeta thought. So time to learn the weird little scribbles and the other weird little scribbles, because without that Jade wouldn’t teach her more Japanese, and without that, Jade wouldn’t let her watch more anime, and without that, she’d be lost in the sea of too many choices.

She glanced down at the lists of hiragana and katakana. “Ah, Ee, Oo, Ey, Oh. Kah, Ki, Ku, Kay, Ko.” The sounds were easy enough — the Disciple’s book had been written in a musical dialect that sounded pretty much like Japanese, but the word meanings were completely different and she was fairly certain “che” wasn’t a sound in Japanese. Still, she had to keep going.

***

“Watashi wa Nepeta desu!” Nepeta tackled Jade in a friend hug. “Was that good?”

“Really good!” said Jade. “So you know all the hiragana and katakana now?” Nepeta nodded fiercely. “All right, let me just test you with these flash cards!” Nepeta whined slightly out of frustration.

“You mean I gotta go through a test? I thought I was done when I memorized them!” Jade laughed a little as she pulled the flashcards from her sylladex.

“Don’t worry, I’m just making sure you didn’t do something like write them on your arm or something. So! These are all in random order, so let’s begin.” Jade flipped over the first card.

Nepeta’s response was lightning fast. “So. Ka. Re. Mi. Chi. U. Yo. N.”

The narrator won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say Nepeta scored perfectly, whizzing through all 92 faster than a cheetah high on cocaine. Jade picked up her little handheld PDA computer and sent a message. A few minutes later, Sollux walked in carrying a bunch of DVDs.

“All right,” he said. “Here’th your Azumanga Day-o, your Cometchu, and your Boccurano.” Jade frowned.

“I said Boccano, not Bokurano!” Sollux shrugged, readjusting his glasses.

“Boccano, Bokurano, what’th the difference?” And with that, Sollux left the room. Jade rolled her eyes.

“So which one are we watching first?” asked Nepeta. “When you were talking about them Baccano sounded the most interesting!” Jade shrugged.

“Yeah, but this is Bokurano, and I’ve never watched that one. Maybe we’ll watch that one last. I think we’ll watch Kamichu first. You kind of remind me of Yurie, so it’ll be a really great one to begin with!”

***

By the end of the first series, Nepeta couldn’t hold back the tears. Seeing Yurie and Kenji’s romance play out on the screen made her think of what might have been with Karkat. Well, what couldn’t have been, but she would cross that bridge of acceptance later. Right now was a time for happy thoughts, like how adorable the show was, or how cute Karkat would look in one of those festival clothing things, or the way the humans looked like little lobsters at the end of the beach episode.

Then came Azumanga Daioh, and Nepeta was laughing at most of the antics. The one part she didn’t get was why most of the cats didn’t like Ms. Sakaki, but she figured it was just set-up for the very end. She knew she liked Sakaki, and she was fairly certain Pounce would have, too. Cuddling her plush copy of Pounce de Leon, Jade looked at the last disc.

“I swear Bokurano is supposed to be longer than you can fit on one DVD,” she said, frowning. “Oh well, let’s put it in.” Jade put in the DVD, then went to the kitchen to make popcorn. She was willing to mis the opening, which Nepeta never liked to do. The openings were almost always bright and cheerful and exciting.

The title sequence came on, and Nepeta squinted. “That… that doesn’t say Bokurano, that says Boku no Piko. What’s that?” she called into the kitchen.

In a flash reminiscent of the Green Sun, Jade was there, and she’d pulled out the TV cord. Another flash of green, and Sollux was next to her, taken from a sitting position. His butt hit the floor with a crash, and Nepeta laughed a little. “Sollux! Not only did you mix up Baccano and Bokurano, you didn’t even get Bokurano! This is Boku no Pico!”

“They’ve both got a Bokuno in them, what’th the big deal?” Jade grabbed his shirt angrily.

“The big deal is this is hentai! Gay hentai! I don’t want to watch hentai with my friends, I want to watch fun series!” Nepeta blinked. Sollux opened his mouth to retort, but Nepeta cut him off.

“Um… Jade?” Jade looked at her. “What’s hentai?”

Jade didn’t answer, instead turning red. Sollux, however, answered in a somewhat bored manner. “It theemth to involve a lot of naked humanth. I found one therieth online, if you want I can thend it to you.” Nepeta nodded. Sollux pressed a button on his glasses and the files began transferring instantly. “It’th called ‘Bible Black’, no idea what it meanth, but apparently it’th what hentai ith.”

***

Jade had explained a little more afterwards, and Nepeta had decided against watching the Bible Black anime. After all, watching human pornography would be really weird and probably really uncomfortable. Still, she was curious. And it wasn’t like reproduction was totally dissimilar. Maybe just a peek. That wouldn’t hurt, would it? Besides, she wanted to see what humans looked like naked, and this was as good a way as any! Right?

…

Nepeta’s reaction to the first few nude scenes could be summed up as follows: “Holy Righteous Leggings are humans frightening naked. Where are all the bits necessary for genetic material transference? How do they manage to procreate? Maybe I should ask Jade about… no. No no no no no no no.” She quit the program and deleted the files; the images would probably remain burned into her brain for a while. She glanced at her computer screen. Maybe studying Japanese would get her mind off the weird English-dubbed thing she’d seen.

Yeah. She could study Japanese and think about Kamichu and Azumanga Daioh. And then everything would be awesome again.

An e-mail from Jade popped up.

“ok, next week if you study, we’re watching baccano and durarara. and this time, I’M the one who downloaded them, so i know we’ve got the right ones. see you soon! :)  
-jade”

Nepeta grinned. That would be the best anime night ever. And there’d be no hentai. Nothing with naked humans. Naked humans and their looking weird. Weird and scary.

“…dammit, brain. Stop thinking about that!” She could almost hear her brain’s response of “No.”

**Author's Note:**

> Had to do that thing at the end. I just had to. XD


End file.
